Another Fine Day(s)

To steal a phrase from Maude Lebowski, riding can be a "zesty enterprise", just as much as skiing in my opinion.  But using a bike to make an approach to a ski shot.....on a bluebird day.....on memorial day weekend....in AZ....with the finale being a short bomb back down to the car on said bike is just about as much fun as one should legally have in one day.  Add in good friends, beer and music....and what one gets is a stoke meter that goes to 11.

The day started with a 3:30am wake time, 4:00am meet at Splitchimps house and a 5:45 push from the trailhead at Locket Meadow where we met with J.  As we readied our gear in the calm 30 degree morning, I found myself looking longingly up at the western ridgeline which was just being blessed with the first direct rays of sunlight of the day.

I don't think I was bitching too much about my 40lb pack weight, but I did request the use of a shockpump to effectively lock out my 5.5" of suspension in the rear.....so when split offered to carry my boots on his rack equipped Coconino....I responded in the affirmative without a seconds hesitation....I may be prideful....but I'm also practical.....

Our pace up the service road from the meadow to the wilderness boundary was excruciatingly slow as we clawed our way up all 1500 vertical feet in granny gear, with J on foot keeping easy pace with us on bikes.....

Photo by Splitchimp

As we neared the bottom of Fremont Peak, the talk turned to our best guesses as to the best ski shot of the day....the closer we got....the more sun cupped the snow appeared.

Photo by Splitchimp

Stopping in the shadows, we discovered some unique vertical ice crystals forming out of the dirt....melting in the days sun only to regrow each night.

Split pontificating as to the pro's and con's of each line....Looking South in the photo:  Telemark is on the far right, Silverton to the left of Telemark in the center of the photo below.  Silverton was favored with some sheltered shots up high, obscured from view which we guessed would be less sun-banged.

I shot a 360 video at this point to capture just how much snow remains on the numerous lines of the IB.....July skiing is becoming a possiblity on some of the isolated north faces out of view.....

Hedging our bets, we continued west past Telemark to check out a narrow couloir named Roadway which looked promising.....as we got closer, it appeared to be as the others....so we turned back to Silverton with the intention of seeking some isolated chutes higher up in the shadows.  Traversing back east across the toe of Telemark's avalanche path, we found numerous reminders of the power of the white dragon.....not that anyone in this crew needed any more reminders on the season.

Passing the debris field, we paused for some lunch before bootpacking up the 1500 feet to the top of the couloir.

As we climbed up Silverton, I turned my camera to the NW to shoot the SE face of Humpheys Peak with a section of our planned line in the foreground.

Topping out at treeline, I shot a pic of Sazi looking unusually patient for us to decide where to start our run.

Looking eastward towards the Painted Desert, Doyle peak features prominently on the skyline as we set up our gear for the descent.

Setting up to shoot Split and J, I looked down at the giant corn glistening in the sun below my skis on the fall line.

Peering back up, I spied Sazi jumping the gun on Split....that dog always gets first tracks....

Shooting in rapid fire mode, Split drops in with Sazi leading the way.....

Jump turns become the order of the day on this 50+ degree pitch....

The chimp flashes a grin with the stoke meter pegged over nice, forgiving corn snow.

Waiting for J to drop, Split and I paused in a safe zone mid-chute and threw snowballs at Sazi as I captured the acrobatics.....

As I shot some great sequence pictures of J descending....I was bummed to find in post-processing that my foucs was FUBAR....so the only shots I got of him were some close ups....which still capture the flexible aggressiveness of his turn style which has always struck me as beautiful......

Descending the lower elevations, we encountered 6 inch sun cups which made linking turns sporty....but we all had plenty of great turns higher up to already make this a successful day.  Bombing back down the fire road, extra stoke points were gained on the end of the day as we returned home by 2pm in time for Dara to go on a ride and for us to hang with Flags most popular toddler.

Considering that this was just the last day of the holiday weekend for me (which means absolutely nothing when you're unemployed), I should mention that this stoke-train started with a Thursday day ride with chollaball at Hawes, followed immediately by a night ride with J-Money Millionaire at Hawes; followed by a hot morning ride with J-Money at SoMo for a Pima-Beverly-Javalina-Morman-BV-Natty-Pima ride; then a drive up the hill to Flagstaff for a Friday night show at Mia's to watch Splits band, Planet Sandwich play a show.  Which leads me to wonder...what will happen to me when I can no longer peg the stoke meter at 11 for days on end?

Ride it until it breaks: Rest & Repeat

I did 102 miles on the MTB the previous week with 8,000vf of climbing.  This week I did 105 miles on the MTB with 11,500vf of climbing.....and this last one was supposed to be my rest week.  It's hard to turn down a good ride, even harder so with good friends on trails you've never ridden...luckily, I only had to do this yesterday by texting tRoy early in the morning and letting him know I was backing out of the H******e ride.

My IT band finally had enough, and threw in the towel for me by stabbing me with "ice pick" pain as I crawled out of bed on Sunday morning.  After some RICE, it should be good to go for my next progressive ride on the slow, methodical ramp up to a series of very long rides this summer and fall.

I'm not complaining though; I got some great rides in this week with nary a peep out of my knee until the end....which is the way I plan these things.  Keep ratcheting up the miles and vertical feet per week to the point of pain....back away from the ledge with a heavy dose of ibuprofen, stretching, ice and rest....then do it all over again, only add another 10 miles and 1,000vf to the previous benchmark.  I then repeat the cycle until I reach my goal, or have a setback by damaging something....then I have to start all over again.....hence my ultra-sensitive need to back away from rides if I feel I've crossed the threshold of pain into damage territory.

Still, on Friday morning when I woke; my knee was making some weird indications to me that I possibly should not ride with tRoy that afternoon....however I outguessed it as some psychosomatic pain....and as soon as I had arrived at the base of Eldon, it was gone.  I guess that after my Wednesday ride; it tried to trick my brain into more rest and less ride.

Friday saw us rolling ~20 miles with ~2k of vert on a spin up shultz-meadow-secret-orion-gnarly-jedi-shultz---->which then led me to PnT as per Friday procedures dictate.

With all of the snow still in sight, our conversations still centered around next weekends planned snowplay on the north side....it's getting harder to stay in snow mode with the riding getting so good.

Drinking in the cool snowmelt fed spring, I was reminded of not needing a full 3-liters of water with me everywhere I go....a hard habit to break when your daily ride lasts only an hour and you HAVE to drink 1.5 liters just to stay lucid.

Climbing up little gnarly, a few snow banks were spotted, but were not an issue.  Cresting gnarly, the Dry Lake came into view....not so dry right now.  We tried catching a frog or two which were busy calling out in the tussles of grass...but they were smarter than us.

Transitioning to Jedi and expecting snow carnage, we were surprised to find the trail clear of trees and snow....I made some log rolls that surprised me with grace, others I made that clumsily reminded me I needed to remove my big ring, and some that I walked in humility....only to watch tRoy make it look easy...kodak courage....

Just as soon as I marveled at how clear the trail was, I jinxed myself.....Jedi clearly needs some yoda's to come out here with a few lightsabers and clear this mess.....

After a night of fine dining and drinking at PnT and later Flag Brew, I told another friend, J-Money,  that I wanted a mellower ride later in the day on Saturday.  Clearly, I was under the influence of the brew.....J-Money does not do mellow.  I wanted to check out Fay Canyon....J said it was one of his favorites, so he suggested we ride out through Fay Canyon and then to Marshall Lake via the AZ Trail and back.

Aside from the 50 mph winds which threatened to blow us over on a few switchbacks and in the clearings, we were mostly protected by the trees.  Fay Canyon was a blast with some serious flow, but was still horse banged and I was told....was in the worst condition seen so far....I was still impressed.

At first I was able to keep up with J, but as soon as we hit the climbs on loose, cherty limestone cobbles....he took off and I had no choice to HAB it, gasping for air as I foolishly reminded myself not to try and keep pace with the man.  All of the climbs were gettable....but less so when I was already red-lining at the bottom of the climb.  I usually keep an average pace of 8mph and can pretty much keep this until I have to sleep.....we were holding just shy of 10mph.

All in all, I rolled 31 miles with 4,200vf on the day....I got destroyed by the millionaire.  Just as I rolled the last mile to home after a tasty beer at J-Money's house...I got the familiar twinge in my right knee, knowing full well what this meant.....I would cancel the Sunday ride in Sedona....but not before I shoved a pork roll down my gullet which is now lodged in my colon 2 days later.  Thanks goes to Mr. Handlebarsandwich and his birthday feast on Saturday for which his family sent him two, giant, Taylor Pork Rolls (think giant spam....now think bigger).  These were sliced and grilled...and then consumed...which then put me in a pork coma.  I still feel that coma........

Four Peaks on a hot Spring day

I'm no longer sure how much I climbed today......my pre-route digitization in Topofusion says ~5k, my after route on my Garmin says 5561vf gained.....and the custom algorithm in Topofusion says ~7k.  I'm inclined to believe that 5500 is about right.....but I will say that investigating how Topofusion computes the various elevations is something I need to do, since sandbagging is never cool....unless you're doing it to folks you know well.  In the end, I'm going to claim 5561 as the vf gained over 37 miles.  My total time was 5:05 with 4:19 being the moving time.

Nevertheless, I wanted a hill climb today and no matter how you cut it; climbing from the Beeline Highway up to the wilderness boundary on Four Peaks is just that....a hill climb.  I started way to late in the 80 degree temps and instantly regretted it as the first pitch and the sweat litterly, poured off my elbows which were crouched as I tried to apply every bit of torque I could generate onto my back wheel.  Stopping to shoot pictures of Saguaro's which were some of the tallest I've seen, allowed me to catch a break every now and then.

Cresting the 1st pitch at mile 6, I was relieved to catch sight of my target, which is the mellow hump to the left of the rocky, quad-peak on the skyline.

Off of my left shoulder, I felt the heat radiating off of "Tombstone Ridge", so named by the early inhabitants of PHX using this area as a source for gravestones.  I'm guessing they made the trip in winter.....

Taking another short breather at the 1st substantial source of water I encountered, I marveled at the amount of water still flowing this far down in elevation, this late in the year.......El Nino was very kind to the Sonoran this year.......I should know......

As I started the next significant pitch, I caught sight of a long shadow on the road ahead of me.  Confused as to how the bushes to the right of this shadow could cast such a narrow profile, it occurred to me that I was riding towards a huge bull snake....one of the largest that I'd seen.....way longer than my bike......

Getting closer by effort, but not by sight....the peaks still seemed far off....much farther compared to how much water I was slurping down....

Mental masturbation became the norm as I continually scanned my average speed, distance gained, elevation left and most importantly, water left.....the numbers on the Garmin became gospel....the fears in my mind triggered by the weight of water on my shoulders, ever-present; yet ignored.....

Given the importance I treat this curious import of plastic and silicon, I thought it might want an action shot of its own so that one day, it may blog about it's raddnes as well.....

I was clearly on a trip to funky town.... losing water off my body faster than I chose to consume it.  Thoughts of needing iodine tablets for emergencies flooded my mind.....knowing that I'd have no problem drinking from the streams if I needed to......but knowing that I'm not a fan of spending several days on the toilet either.  These thoughts were washed astern as soon as I rounded the next corner to spy "The Choice of a New Generation"......sure.....if that new generation knows how to drink from a steel, pull top can.....

The Yerba Del Diablo, or Sacred Datura was looking fine along the way....

Stopping yet again at another cool spot, I splashed the cool waters on my legs and gazed up at the cottonwoods.....I could just end it here I told myself.......yet I climbed more.

More Yerba Del Diablo presented itself as the terrain became green with manzinita......at last, my efforts are finally paying off in the form of a changing flora.....

Taking yet another breather at the mid-point of the third pitch, I looked back to spy Red Mountain and the flats from whence I came......damn, that's kinda far down there......

More turns of the crank led to rapid changes in the flora.......this time I spied Brown Peak, the tallest of the Four Peaks...."and conifers....at long last....the conifers"......I was clearly living in a place called hope which was defined by pine trees vs. cactus.

Nearing the end of the climb, I ruminated about just continuing on to Lake Roosevelt on the east side of the peaks via Hwy 188.....I could just jump in, I thought to myself......nonsense.

Reaching the AZ trail just east of the ridgeline, I finally felt I was getting somewhere........

Topping out at the wilderness boundary was anti-climatic......half of the mileage was over...but not half the ride.  With my water now at 2-liters, I was confident I had enough...but knew there would be some rationing involved....the trick would be to keep the cramps at bay.  All this talk of water (I was speaking outloud to myself at this point) led me to shoot this view of Lake Roosevelt off to the east and down in the heat.....I could still jet down to the highway and jump in.....

Turning back one time, I shoot Brown with it's Ponderosa slopes.....

Screaming downhill, gaining the heat....I spied the road I must take back to the flats off in the distance....In all this downhill, I still needed to climb a total of 1200ft to get back to the car.....my 2 liters suddenly did not feel so adequate.  Still, I was distracted enough to pick out Toms Thumb, Rio Verde, Camelback Mountain and the Papago Buttes.....

The descent came fast and hot, the sound of my disk brakes vaporizing water in the stream crossings was a reminder that I should perhaps carry a spare set of brake pads.......yet I was distracted again by more landmarks, this time; Weavers Needle.

Getting back to the car, I knew I was on the verge of dehydration; yet I experienced no cramps and overall still felt strong.  A good ride on a beautiful hot Spring day.